This week's new releases is like honey spread between two big slices of 7-grain bread. Sandwiched between two high profile weeks, it's easy to get overlooked, but there is something sweet and sticky here. Or something. I'm grasping at straws, aren't I? This week features TV on the Radio's Dave Sitek and a slew of friends as Maximum Balloon along with the latest from Robert Pollard's Boston Spaceships, Swans, Sharon Van Etten, Margot & the Nuclear So & So's, Shit Robot, Michael Franti with Spearhead; a collaboration between John Legend and The Roots; and the sparkling debut from Frankie Rose & the Outs.
Better known as TV on the Radio guitarist and producer Dave Sitek, Maximum Balloon at times sounds a lot like TVOTR, only without any left turns. Unlike Sitek's more challenging band, MB could find its way on to the radio, especially the opening number "Groove Me" (featuring some singing from rapper Theophilus London, see video below). TVOTR vocalists Tunde Adebimpe and Kyp Malone lend vocals, along with David Byrne, Karen O, Holly Miranda, and Little Dragon. It's great at what it does, even if it might not end up being something you go back to over and over.
A release from Boston Spaceships has been closest thing to a Guided By Voices recording we've had since Robert Pollard broke up the legendary band. Perhaps it's fitting that with Our Cubehouse Still Rocks, we've got the best album since that breakup, and it coincides with a bonafide Guided By Voices reunion. From the chorus of "Bet he runs" in the opener, "Track Star," all the way to the sure to be live classic "In Bathroom (Up Half the Night)," Cubehouse aims to please even the most fair weather Uncle Bob fan.
Recap of events from the second day of Sasquatch now up at Bumpershine. The Wrens (pictured above, Wrens axes Greg Whelan and Charles Bissell,) once again, were the highlight of the festival for me, but there were some interesting performances from TV on the Radio, Of Montreal and St. Vincent as well.
It's a pretty exclusive club that TV on the Radio joins with the appearance, joining Willie Nelson, Paul McCartney, Paul Simon, REM, Wilco and (uh...) Rush as musical guests that have come on the show. And given their leftist lyrics, we can expect Colbert to have cooked up something 'truthy' to spring on them (more than a 'wag of the finger,' to be sure). (UPDATE: scroll down to see the gigglefest of an interview.)
Meanwhile, Spectacle: Elvis Costello with... keeps chugging out fascinating episodes. With Jenny Lewis, She & Him and Jakob Dylan appearing this week, the theme appears to be singer/songwriters who were known for something else before music. Lewis was a child actress (Troop Beverly Hills,) Zooey Deschanel (the 'she' of She & Him,) is of course still an actress and Jakob Dylan is a famous offspring of someone named Bob. Outside of that, I can't for the life of my figure out what Jakob Dylan is doing in this segment. Lewis enlisted Costello's help with a song ("Carpetbaggers") on her last album (Acid Tongue,) so it's pretty much cemented that the song is on the docket for the evening.
And finally, at my kids' behest, I have to mention that They Might Be Giants won a Grammy last night for Best Musical Album for Children (Here Come the 123's,) which my (almost) 4-year old had down as a lock. The transformation of the two Johns from quirky rock fave to quirky kid's music might seem cemented with their win in the category, but another feature of the genre might have already done that. "It's crazy money; those kids are loaded!" joked John Linnell backstage after receiving the award. While the Grammy win seems timely for their appearance on Conan Thursday night, they're likely playing their contribution to the film Coraline, "Other Father Song." But, since my son might be looking in, we've got to pimp The 123's
Getting snowed in and extending myself writing other projects helped contribute to this list's delinquency, but it can also be said that I dreaded this post a bit due to a slight dip in quality this year. In the past, this list would run up over 100 in length, but not this go 'round. I was not as excited by the depth of releases this year -- quite a few releases impressed, but on the whole, I found it to be a down year. Also, 2009 has come earlier than in the past (hello new releases from Animal Collective, Andrew Bird, Antony & the Johnsons, A.C. Newman and Robert Pollard) and since I'm about to head to Mexico for a week, this will be incredibly brief.
The most focused and consistently great album that TVOTR has released yet, which is saying a lot. And it's funky. Dear Science opens like an extension of Cookie Mountain (best album from 2006) and eventually ends with an ode to sex that sounds like it Sufjan Stevens orchestrated the song's final few minutes. Breathtaking.
The first of Sub Pop's near dominance in 2008, and also the first example of how the late 80's/early 90's is coming in style. Even though the LA punk duo is by all estimations still getting it's bearings, Nouns seems to hit a sweet spot that's been missing... sloppy DIY punk delivered via My Bloody Valentine guitar swirls, all encased with a tape-loop hiss that all together sounds far more accessible than you'd think it would.
More love for Sub Pop. Between the reverb and the incredible vocal harmonies, it's hard to not play the Pet Sounds card, but the folky guitar strums send us in the direction of CSN&Y.
Latest relies more on pop conventions than past releases. There's still plenty of noise and artful moments here to be sure, but the swing to convention is concrete to the ears, and the sound is thrilling.
DJ Andrew Butler may be the man behind the beats, but the star here is really Antony Hegarty (Antony and the Johnstons,) who's expressive voice sounds possibly even more at home in this updated disco setting than the band he fronts.
The third album QT has recorded since Amplified (1999) while just the first to get an actual physical release. Welcome back QT, and welcome back A Tribe Called Quest-like grooves.
Craig Finn actually singing more than speaking? Rock riff nods to Led Zep and Thin Lizzy? Relax... it's still Hold Steady at the core of these tales of good kids reaching for something big, falling hard and getting back up again.
Yet more love Sub Pop. Still present is the restless mixtapery of Wild Mountain Nation, but a bit more focus. Lots of 70's pop and rock mishmashed together in a manner that's quite pleasing to the ears (and mind).
Like Q-Tip, the Bristol trip-hop pioneers are another 90's comeback story. But their not content to just return to their sound, instead they push on to new uncharted territories. Dense and sinister, it's an aural onion waiting to be peeled.
A refinement of Grinderman's midlife Christ-kick, Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! is rock with Cave's wit on full display. "I say prolix! Prolix! Something a pair of scissors can fix."
It's been nearly a decade since his last released album (Amplified,) but it's not as if Q-Tip hasn't been working since. The former A Tribe Called Quest MC at one time bounced between five labels in six years, even finalizing an album (Kamaal the Abstract, 2002) that his label ended up shelving at the last minute, deeming it too un-commercial. All told, he's recorded three albums during this time that never saw the light of day, but that all finally changes with the release of The Renaissance on Election Day, intentionally tying the album to the hope of a new beginning for both America and QT.
Q-Tip is scheduled to perform the lead single in "Gettin' Up" on Letterman Thursday, and that song featured production from longtime friend and colleague the late J Dilla, who passed on nearly three years ago. QT references Dilla several times in the album, but it's the glory days of A Tribe Called Quest that are the big take away here. Not just QT's impeccable timing in rhyme, but also the jazz collages that made an album like Midnight Marauders a hip-hop classic.
Meanwhile, TV on the Radio continues showcasing 2008's album of the year, this time playing Leno on Friday. Their performance of "Dancing Choose" last month on Letterman took place on a fire escape (video,) which was probably necessary because they were en fuego. Jay Leno might want to take some fire safety precautions in the coming days.
Blitzen Trapper's Sub Pop debut continues some of the restless mixtapery found on their prior release Wild Mountain Nation, creating perhaps sharper collages of 70's hippyish rock. Neil, Dylan and the Dead are all present, and when they turn it up a notch, I even hear some mid-70's Robert Palmer, another branch of the long haired boogie rock of the 70's. Furr, while not as good as Delta Spirit's debut (Ode to Sunshine,) builds on the hippie indie rock sound of Cold War Kids and Dr. Dog, with BT sounding a bit like an Americana version of the retro paisley 90's band Jellyfish. Lots of 70's pop and rock mishmashed together in a manner that's quite pleasing, even if you've heard it all before. When the steel guitar and other alt country leanings creep in is when BT really shines, like on the highlight title track and beautifully lazy "Stolen Shoes and a Rifle."
Splitting the difference between her gospel-tinged solo debut (Rabbit Fur Coat, with the Watson Twins) and her latest 70's AM radio-like offering with Rilo Kiley (Under the Blacklight,) Acid Tongue ultimately fails to capture the attraction of either. There are plenty of highlights that suggest that this could've been a great album, like the gospel of the title track, the rocking fun of "Fernando," and epic "The Next Messiah." The strangest thing for me is that "Carpetbaggers" actually suffers from having Elvis Costello lending vocals, sounding more like stunt casting than collaboration. It might be that my expectations were unrealistic, but I still can't even make it all the way through the opening track ("Black Sand") without grinding my teeth, and that's never a good thing. It's an album that's sure to have plenty of fans (just not me).
1981's My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, the previous collaboration between David Byrne and Brian Eno, was a landmark recording for many reasons, including it's pioneering use of sampling. It was released with little fanfare, slowly building an appreciation over the years for it's fusion of African rhythms, paranoid funk and voices echoing a cult of personality. 27 years later, they're back, but Everything That Happens will Happen Today shares almost nothing in common with their cult classic. In fact, with the prevalence of an acoustic guitar throughout, it resembles more in mood the innocence and laid back qualities of Talking Heads' Little Creatures. Songs like "Life is Long" and "Strange Overtones" are immediate, feeling effortless and oozing positivity, a far cry from the paranoia of previous collaborations. The few times the duo stray back into the experimental sounds of their previous effort, it doesn't seem to work. The trip-hop of "I Feel My Stuff" feels like an unwelcome left turn when it arrives, and "Poor Boy" just feels wrong for some reason in the context of the album. It is still Eno and Byrne, though, so even the misteps are more interesting than most can offer these days.
As Wall Street is being crushed under it's own karmic weight, Dear Science is turning out the be the perfect soundtrack to fiddle while Rome burns. From top to bottom, Dear Science is the most focused and consistently great album that TVOTR has released yet, which is saying a lot. And it's funky, as evidenced on the lead single "Golden Age," (coptastic video!) which beautifully apes Jacko's "Wanna Be Starting Something." The album opens with the ba-ba-ba's of "Halfway Home," a song that acts as the perfect bridge from Cookie Mountain, sounding very much in that mold of artistry, but then also adding some subtle orchestration. By the next song, "Crying," it's apparent that we're in for even more than expectations set us up for. Kyp Malone's falsetto has always been there, but by turning up the funk and adding horns (courtesy of Antibalas,) the effect is a different experience entirely. "Dancing Choose" has Tunde Adebimpe sounding like Saul Williams, and those horns continue to kill me. Following "Golden Age," the ballad "Family Tree" builds from a slow and sparse oddity into the beautifully orchestrated ending that's like Sigur Ros, with the histrionic dial turned down a notch. I could easily wax on about each and every track, but I'll just single out two more, "Red Dress" and the closer "Lover's Day," as absolute stunners. I can already hear a few outlier voices crying that TVOTR has lost a bit of their art, but that's really just haughty hooey. It's a nearly perfect album, and, like previous TVOTR releases, rewards upon repeat listenings. Album. Of. The. Year.
Noah and the Whale's debut is a pleasurable serving of twee pop. You've more than likely already heard the first single "5 Years Time" from a recent Saturn television commercial. The Twickenham five piece cobbled their name together from American director Noah Baumbach's film The Squid and the Whale, and their sound from American folk acts Magnetic Fields, Neutral Milk Hotel, and Sufjan Stevens. There's always a danger in sounding derivative given the obvious references in their sound, as even when it's done as well as this, you know that it's been done before. Still, it's a great collection of maudlin love songs where even a line as sappy as "let my love surround you like an ether in everything that you do," is delivered in a way that a cringe turns into a smile.
Praise be! The new TV on the Radio album Dear Science is in Rhapsody a week early, and now we can also watch the video for the "Wanna Be Starting Something"ish lead single "Golden Age." Complete with dancing cops and the band as muscled shapeshifters, it's a real head scratcher (in the good way):
Like a lot of people, I wasn't too impressed with the first hour of HBO's surf noir John From Cincinnati. It was hard to find things to like about any of the characters, and it was cryptic in a way that was more 'wtf??' than 'wow, you just blew my mind!' But now that I've seen three hours of the David Milch drama, I'm hooked to it like The Sopranos, Lost and, yes, Milch's last HBO series, Deadwood. Since it's probably not a show you can just drop in anywhere on, HBO is re-airing the first three episodes tonight – like lined up peaks for you to totally shred (Dude.)
There's so much going on in these three episodes, it's hard to put in one post, but here's some of the highlights. First and foremost is the opening credits, which are a mesmerizing montage of old surf film clips cut beautifully together with Joe Strummer's "Johnny Appleseed." In this regard, JFC dutifully fills The Sopranos shoes as opening credits that you relish watching again. I'm not sure if it's intentional or not, but Strummer's lyric about "don't go killing all the bees" feels especially ominous with recent news and all John's talk about "the end is near."
The music grows as a storytelling method throughout the series. When the second episode ends with a 'resurrection,' TV On The Radio's "Staring at the Sun" plays with the opening lyrics "cross the street from your storefront cemetary..." and goosebumps appear.
By the third episode, we're inundated with musical references. As Freddy "the ice cream man" (Deadwood's Dayton Callie) talks to himself in his car parked outside the hospital, he's listening to the Sarah Brightman duet with Andrea Bocelli of "Time to Say Goodbye (Con te partirò)" Freddy must assume the worst about Shaun to be listening to a song like this (especially considering his brutish nature.) "Aww. That's where the blind dago was supposed to come in. What's this, a different version?" No, Freddy, Bocelli actually comes in later. Some may remember once upon a time this song served as a sort of theme for Carmela on The Sopranos.
Then, in a very Twin Peaks-like scene back at the 'haunted' hotel room, Barry says, knee-deep in Milchspeak: "I alone, then, am favored by that jovially croaking postcoital falsetto winsomely caricaturing Debby Boone?" To which he starts to sing "You Light Up My Life," (did anyone else flashback to Todd Solondz' Happiness here?) When Barry later mutters the seemingly non-sequiter "black bobby socks," I find myself eerily looking forward to a Lynchian flashback that involves said song and socks.
Later in the episode, John makes Kai "see God," set to Buddy Guy's rendition of John Lee Hooker's "Boogie Chillen." Why Buddy Guy's version? Most likely because in the middle he starts improvising with the lines "gotta get away from John for a bit." The 'seeing god' montage is once again very David Lynch, showing four of the characters all being burned by metal: Kai's piercings, Ramon's necklace, Vietnam Joe's shrapnel in his leg, and the transdermal horn implants in Butchie's head. That last one was an odd revelation, one that you'd assume will have more meaning later, but Butchie as "the beast" here makes perfect sense. As Shaunie skates the half-pipe outside the Yost home, it's set to the song "Feeling Good," popularized by the great Nina Simone, but covered here to great histrionic effect by Muse. The onlookers gasp (Link revealingly says "Jesus Christ!") as they watch the resurrected son riding the homemade wave... cue credits.
Speaking of resurrection, you can imagine there's a lot of religious themes going on here - even the main character, named John Monad, a last name which philosophers associate with the obscure metaphysics of Leibniz. This use of a last name in sync with philosophy is pure Lost. Monism is the theological/metaphysical belief that 'all is one,' and there are no fundamental divisions. The setting of Imperial Beach is full of these 'divisions' or borders – Mexico and the US, Tijuana and San Diego, land and ocean, life and death. The main characters are faced with miracle after miracle, but refuse to recognize it as such, until Dr. Smith (played by chameleon Garret Dillahunt, who played twodifferent roles in Milch's Deadwood) is shaken to his science-based core by Shaun's recovery. Then folks start to acknowledge what they've known all along: weird things are afoot since John arrived.
And last, but certainly not least, is Milch's dialogue he perfected with Deadwood. The characters speak a lot that seems nonsense, but with their actions, these words have a lot more meaning. When Linc (Luke Perry) says to Dr. Smith "Thank you. Thank you for the work you do," he sounds polite, but the look they give each other suggests enemies have been born. Meanwhile the following exchange appears to lead to punches, but instead to comaradie.
Bill: "What is your name please?" Freddy: "What's your name?" Bill: "Bill Jacks. I'm a retired police officer. And you don't want to make me ask your name again." Freddy: "Retired cops don't get my name, what time it is, or pissed on if they go up in flames." a few minutes later... Freddy: "I'm a friend of the family, all right?" Bill: "I'm a friend of the family." Freddy: "Then they got two friends looking out for them." Bill: "And you look out for them how, by seeing when their backs are turned so you can steal their drapes?"
The characters stand side-by-side with arms crossed staring at the house, the cop and criminal on the same side. It's exchanges like these that lessen the blow of not having another season of Deadwood to look forward to.
Better known as TV on the Radio guitarist and producer Dave Sitek, Maximum Balloon at times sounds a lot like TVOTR, only without any left turns. Unlike Sitek's more challenging band, MB could find its way on to the radio, especially the opening number "Groove Me" (featuring some singing from rapper Theophilus London, see video below). TVOTR vocalists Tunde Adebimpe and Kyp Malone lend vocals, along with David Byrne, Karen O, Holly Miranda, and Little Dragon. It's great at what it does, even if it might not end up being something you go back to over and over.
A release from Boston Spaceships has been closest thing to a Guided By Voices recording we've had since Robert Pollard broke up the legendary band. Perhaps it's fitting that with Our Cubehouse Still Rocks, we've got the best album since that breakup, and it coincides with a bonafide Guided By Voices reunion. From the chorus of "Bet he runs" in the opener, "Track Star," all the way to the sure to be live classic "In Bathroom (Up Half the Night)," Cubehouse aims to please even the most fair weather Uncle Bob fan. 
